


Robbie and Noble's Hellish Road-Trip

by rokhal



Series: Robbie Reyes and Noble Kale's Hellish Road-Trip! [1]
Category: Ghost Rider (Comics), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Drabble Sequence, Fifteen Minute Fic, Four Horsemen, Gen, Heat Stroke, Los Angeles, No Apocalypse, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-11-18 19:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 3,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18125408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rokhal/pseuds/rokhal
Summary: When we last left Noble Kale the Ghost Rider of 1990's Brooklyn, he had separated from his human host, regained his own body and the memory of his earthly life, defeated Blackheart, and become King of Hell.This didn't last long.Unseated from the throne of Hell, Noble wanders through the wastelands and finds himself, after a long journey, in Los Angeles.Mostly a series of drabbles written for the 15minutefics community on Pillowfort.io3-27-19 Chapter 7 has updated!





	1. Chapter 1

The air was so hot and dry that Noble Kale thought at first that he was still in Hell. A gentle, more habitable area of Hell, full of smaller, less venomous snakes and scorpions, and more abundant, less poisonous spiny cacti. He descended the rocky hill, bare feet bleeding, as Black Rose scouted ahead in demon form. There was a distant roar like a coliseum crowd, or a river of torment, and, lacking any idea where they were or who was in charge, they headed toward it.

They crossed a road made of asphalt, and Noble's hopes began to rise again. 

Black Rose refused to follow the road, making her way down the hill on hard spiny feet that elongated and contracted with her steps, and so she and Noble parted ways, Noble burning his own feet on the hot blacktop and suffering the spines of pine needles, but no longer cutting or bruising them on rocks. He took off the rags of his shirt and draped them over his head like a cloak.

The road descended three miles of turns and switches, and cars passed him, driven by humans. Now Noble hoped in earnest. Down and down he walked, forgetting the pain in his feet, moving faster and faster though the sweat poured down his back, until he passed a stoplight, cross-walks, low boxy merchant stores, more cars, motorcycles, everything different than he remembered from when he last saw the living world -- the cars upright and angular with huge headlights like great cat eyes, the lines in the street glimmering in the sun -- and he walked and walked, ignoring the stares of passers-by at his shirtless body and clammy, reddening skin.

Ahead of him, he saw a tower. At the top of the tower, dark against the cloudless sky, a cross.

He collapsed in the middle of the road. 

"We escaped," he croaked, hugging himself. "This is the living world, these are living people." He swiped his fingers across the blood on his feet. "I live," he whispered. "Black Rose, we've returned, I live, I am whole--"

And he fainted on the sidewalk.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for this picture prompt. https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/441208

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After meeting and rescuing the strange man in ragged clothes dying of heat stroke on the sidewalk, Robbie takes Noble Kale out for burgers.

"The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," announced Noble, deadly sincere.

"What," Robbie said.

**Whoa. No. No can do. Nooo biblical shit, kid, we gotta keep a safe distance, we've had this discussion.**

"Famine. Conquest. Disease. Death. The four harbingers of the End Times. They've come to this great City of Angels to spread terror and shed innocent blood," Noble said, his hair smoking faintly and his eyes hollowing in their sockets. "This cannot come to pass."

Robbie checked up and down the row of booths at the Denny's, made sure no one was listening, or at least everyone listening thought Noble was a harmless nutjob. "Okay. I agree, that sounds bad. You know this how? You've seen them before?"

Noble raised one eyebrow at Robbie, like he thought he was an idiot. "Their appearance is as in the Scriptures. They appeared with the sound of thunder. They inflict bloodshed. What more must we know?"

Robbie conceded the point. "Okay. We'll...stop them, I guess? Chase them out of the city? Exorcise them? I don't know how to do that stuff, I hit people and set them on fire. Do these guys even catch on fire?"

**Kid! We are officially leaving the small pond! No. You hear me? They will tear us apart. You're dead. Remember? Dead. I brought you back, maybe I did my job too well, because you keep forgetting that YOU DIED and we do not need to run around thumbing our noses at the Lords of the Underworld! No!**

"Not everything burns, this is true," Noble said, swirling the dregs of his Coke in his paper cup. "But if it cannot burn, it bruises, if it does not bruise, it breaks, if it does not break, it regrets. Though we are outnumbered, we shall stand firm between these killers and the people of this City."

"I might have some problems going up against them," Robbie admitted. "Apparently, I'm not really alive. And that might...take me out of the fight. If we really have to throw down with them, I've got to get my brother out first."

Noble smiled, pained. "I forget you have attachments. Of course. First we secure your brother."

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Black Rose goes looking for her human past. It's been twenty years and there's very little trace left of Roxanne Simpson.

There was no trace of Roxanne Simpson in Logwood Pennsylvania. Black Rose scoured the forest clearing where, she thought, she swore, her trailer had rested the night she'd died. The night she and her children had died.

She sniffed for blood: nothing, not even to her demonic senses. Well. She was just muscle, after all. Not the sharpest nose or mind, barely any magic. This probably wasn't even the right clearing.

She did find twisted fragments of metal and fiberglass buried under the leaves.

Beer bottles, tarps, discarded clothing. A moldy couch. Teenagers and homeless people rested here.

She didn't even remember her death. She could only hope the kids didn't, either. Wherever they were. She hadn't found them in Hell.

Black Rose sat on the couch, nude. Her skin was hard and glossy and the color of old blood; the weak overcast sunlight bothered her eyes. As she leaned back, she dug in to the upholstery with the thorny tentacles, like Medusa's, that stretched out from her head.

If she willed it, she could fool an observer into thinking she was a short red-headed woman with a stubborn jaw and a quick smile, loyal and optimistic and pure of heart. She was free; if she wanted to play at life, she could do it. Humans ate meat to live. She just liked hers a little fresher.

She could find her husband. Try to peel Zarathos off his soul, if she had the power; she certainly didn't have purity anymore. She didn't like her chances.

A cat stared at her from behind a tree, holding a rat in its mouth. It looked like it very much wanted to approach her, but she was in the way. She stood, apologized to the cat, and retreated into the woods a polite distance.

The cat disappeared into the couch and she heard a chorus of mewing from within. Black Rose burned with jealousy.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robbie and Noble confront their first Horseperson of the Apocalypse!

Lightening flashed overhead and Robbie wondered how these so-called Horsepersons of the Apocalypse could possibly get anymore Extra (TM). "How much magic does it take to make a lightening storm in LA in the summer," he wondered, as he stared down at the cemetery. 

Conquest didn't answer. They spread their calloused hands wide, rings flashing on thick fingers, muscular thighs gleaming in the hazy dusk below the hems of their spandex onesie. "Rise," they bellowed. "Rise! Riiiiiiise!"

**Are we really seeing this. Are we sure this isn't WWF?**

The graves began to rumble and heave.

"Kids have field trips here," Robbie growled. "This is...educational. These graves are hundreds of years old!"

Beside him, Noble rolled the throttle on the Harley Davidson he'd commandeered yesterday. Robbie thought the bike liked him. It seemed to follow him everywhere, and listen to his moods like a dog. "Conquest uses a foul magic. Older than Mephisto and just as cruel. Be swift. But be not distracted from our true mission: Vengeance! Upon this abomination who turns the sleeping dead against the innocent!" He spat on the ground and the spittle ignited a starthistle, then he burst into flames, bone and leather and studs.

**This is WWF. I knew it.**

_You gonna joke or you gonna help fight Conquest?_ Robbie demanded, retreating to the Charger.

Noble gunned his motor and smashed his motorcycle through the ancient gravestones, howling, " _Conquest! I will not be denied!"_

A grave just yards away from the Charger erupted, disgorging a tall humanoid figure, whose head snapped from side to side in rapid assessment before fixing on Robbie. It reached down, hauled a panel of casket lumber out of the grave, and charged him.

_Eli! Light us up, looks like we're on containment!_

The car burned, Robbie burned, and then it was the Rider slinging chains and hammers, punching and rolling and smashing the corpses of Los Angeles's earliest European settlers. 

**Whatever keeps us far, far away from your Penance-happy new friend.**

Noble was gone, a bright flaming streak in the night, in pursuit. " _Conquest! Vengeance is upon you!"_

 _Leaving the rest to us. It's just two hundred zombies, we got this._  

The Rider head-butted a corpse, showering himself in mold and bone.

**Yeah. You got this.**

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robbie and Noble leave LA to head East, chasing the trail of destruction. Noble's motorcycle is in the trunk. Gabe is staying with Mrs. Valenzuela, who thinks Robbie has gone to look at colleges.

The Charger wound through a hairpin, diving in and out of the shadows cast by Ponderosa pines that covered the hills. Robbie raised his voice over the hum and whistle of the engine. "It's real? It's a real place?"

"Hell is real," Noble said firmly. "I cannot call it a place."

"What's, uh, what's it like?"

"Unstable," Noble replied after a long pause, long enough for the road to straighten in front of them, for Robbie to downshift to manage a steep uphill grade. "It changes with the whims of its lords. It is..." He trailed off, stared out the window. "When I was last on Earth, when I was merely a spirit, my host, Danny, tried to show me the magnificent and beautiful sights to be found in this world. Pictures in magazines. And everything that is most beautiful, is also dangerous. High mountains. Torrents of water. Fathomless cliffs. Everything that is impossible to build around, that makes living difficult.

"Hell is like that. Dramatic, savage landscapes. But they are not beautiful. The beauty of the earth is that it is the work of Providence. Hell is the work of Malice, and though the forms Malice designs are arresting to behold, they cannot be beautiful, because they have design. Their purpose is bent toward mankind."

"It's artificial," Robbie said.

"Yes."

"Artificial things can be beautiful." He patted the wheel of the Charger defensively.

"Perhaps," Noble admitted, watching his hand. "The craftsman who drafted this vehicle. He loved it. If he did not love it, it would have no grace."

Robbie nodded, thinking of models and years of cars: the ones that were striking, the ones that were dull and derivative.

"The landscape of Hell is like the most celebrated sights of Earth," Noble said, "but all piled upon one-another, and all designed, maliciously, for the eradication of hope."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They find their second harbinger of the end times in a small town in Nevada. Death is all about the numbers games.

**Dice with Death. That's not cliche at all.**

Robbie and Noble stared across the green baize table at the person rattling the dice cup. Or perhaps they were shuffling a pack of cards, or dominoes. Or spinning a dreidel. Death was wearing a tie and tuxedo, and they were young--or perhaps middle-aged--but definitely immortal. They had a brilliant smile and gold teeth.

"Well? How about a game," Death said. 

Robbie frowned at him. "Why."

"Why not?"

Noble and Robbie shared a glance, coming up with nothing tactful to answer.

Robbie cleared his throat. "Because playing games with death is a bad idea." 

Death smiled indulgently. "You should know, Robbie Reyes. How many pedestrians were killed by street racers in the United States last year? 173. This makes the odds of dying in a street race one in eight hundred and fourteen thousand, two hundred and ninety-seven, slightly higher than the odds of dying by kangaroo. Death, life, it's all very binary. Great numbers. Sit down. Play a game for the lives of the population of Sequoia."

**Sounds boring.**

_I know, you think we should kill him._

"You're probably wondering why you should play, instead of trying to foil my plan. You can't foil my plan because you are outmatched. Even as over-powered as you both are. And you should play, because I'm a fair player. If you win, I'll move along. Leave Sequoia, wait for the next flu epidemic or war or ice storm, like usual---I hate being forced to work, understand. And if you lose, I'll include you when I cash out the population of Sequoia, and the end of the world will no longer be your problem. What do you say?"

**No. No. Walk away, walk---fuck.**

"Only one of us plays," Robbie said.

Death narrowed their eyes at him. "Both of you must stay here."

"No. Because then the one who didn't play, has to stay in Sequoia, and they're at stake, too."

Death gritted their teeth, looked up at the ceiling. "Point. Only the gaming parties must stay at the table."

"Noble, how are you with cards?"

Noble stared across at the dice, the dominoes. "Wagering is a sin."

"Guess I'll play," Robbie said, with a meaningful look at Noble. "Go on. Get out of here."

  
  


( _And so Noble Kale rides off to evacuate the city of Sequoia. Or something._ )

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Robbie Reyes gambles with Death for the town of Sequoia, Noble Kale (not so great with cards) works on Plan B.

"None can stay," Noble insisted to the Sheriff as he knelt for the handcuffs in the middle of Sequoia's main street. "Death is coming! Every man, woman, and child must leave, now! Take only the clothes on your backs! Every innocent life in your town is in danger!"

"Terrorism, malicious mischief, arson, hooliganism, and now resisting arrest," the Sheriff announced. "If you want to add to that, keep talking."

Noble ground his teeth, kept himself from burning away to his other form by force of will; patience was never one of his chief virtues, though stubbornness made up for it. "Your city will be attacked and destroyed."

"By who? How do you know? When?" the Sheriff demanded, shoving him into the back of the cruiser, gripping him by the hair as he stuffed him in. "Buddy. Tell it to mental health services or to the FBI. You can't go yelling about the end of the world in the middle of the street. It's impolite. Sit down, shut up."

"I will not shut up!" Noble snapped. "I will not be silenced when innocent life is at stake!"

The Sheriff got in behind the wheel and drove away, leaving Noble's motorcycle on the ground in front of a drugstore. 

 _Think,_ Noble thought. _What would Danny or Robbie do._ "How quickly can a town of this size evacuate?" he demanded. "If some dreadful calamity -- flood, fire. What would justify an evacuation, and how could it be done?"

The Sheriff hummed loudly.

" _Could_ it be done?" Noble challenged.

"Take half a day, and that's scrambling," the Sheriff replied. "Got to get the kids out of school, people want to secure their animals, get the signal out on all the radio channels. Not everyone listens to the radio anymore. And then there's the kooks and shut-ins."

"Do you have a bell?"

"A siren."

"Good. Wail the siren, signal on the radios. Everyone must flee."

"Sure, buddy. Just as soon as we get down to the station and call your folks, alright?"

Noble burned away his flesh and snapped his manacles, punched through the grate that separated him from the front seat. "You will delay no more. Evacuate this city, Sheriff."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The game Robbie chose to play with Death, so as to stall for time for Noble to evacuate the town, was Monopoly.  
> Win or lose, there's a reasonable chance Death would forfeit out of boredom or frustration.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robbie and Noble try to transport some supplies around a road-block to foil Pestilence's plan. They run into some issues.

It was the first time Robbie had ever been on a boat. He didn't think it was supposed to be like this:

A stolen fishing boat stacked to the gunwales (edges? Rims?) with boxes of drugs, the engine stalled, the bilge-pump broken, rainwater pounding down over them and filling his shoes, his clothing, everything. He shivered as he tried again and again to start the outboard motor. Even if he did know what he was looking at, he had no tools to even open it up. Whatever the problem was, it had better be stupid.

Noble was in much better spirits, bailing energetically with a five gallon bucket.

"Aren't you cold?" Robbie demanded.

Noble dumped a pint of water off the side and ducked down to scrape up some more. "Yes," he said. "There was never rain in hell! Not water. And look!" He held out pruned fingers. "I live!"

Robbie rubbed his own pruned fingers, inspected the battery leads. A corroded contact, he could scrape clean. Please be bad contacts. Please don't be a dead battery. Please don't be dead spark plugs. "It doesn't rain much in LA, either," he muttered to himself.

_Any ideas?_

**Oh, you want help now. What am I supposed to do here?**

_Come on, you never took a boat to kill anybody? What else should I try?_

**I always got boats that worked. Try stealing a better one. Or, better: pop back into the car, back to your rathole, and pretend this whole buddy-roadtrip bullshit never happened.**

_I'm not leaving those people to die._

"Hey, Noble," Robbie said. "I got an idea. I think I can get the car to tow this boat across."

Noble narrowed his eyes. "You can? I've felt my power severed since we shoved off."

"Uh..." Robbie felt through the back of his mind for the car. Distantly, he thought he could feel the rain pound on the roof, but when he tried to burn up and slip back into it, nothing happened.

_Eli?_

**Um.**

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still stranded on a boat with a dead motor and a hundred thousand dollars in stolen medical supplies, Robbie and Noble take stock after the storm breaks.

They'd bailed all through the night. The little fishing boat took on water continually, from the rainstorm and from a leak somewhere in the hull; Robbie had given the lifeless outboard motor a rest after the second time he'd nearly dropped his flashlight trying to examine it. Perhaps in the daylight, with a fresh perspective and better light, he'd have some luck.

But a sleepless night of hauling buckets and trying to catnap on soaked upholstery had not given him a fresh perspective. The cardboard boxes of antitoxins and antibiotics that crowded the decks were sodden and fragile; only the plastic bottles and jars within preserving their contents.

At least the entire night had been refrigeration temperature, so nothing was spoiled.

Hours after dawn, the rainstorm cleared up and they could see the shore.

“I don't know if that's Minnesota or Michigan,” Robbie announced.

“If I had my powers I would signal for help,” Noble said, staring at the shore, jaw clenched. “The pail is white,” he said, nodding at the bucket. “We could wave it overhead.”

“Let me check for cell reception.” Robbie pulled out his phone, safe in its case. Four bars. “Alright. I should have some data left, I'll look up the Coast Guard's phone number. And we're near...shit, we're back on the West side. This was such a stupid idea.”

“It was the best we had at the time,” Noble said, gripping the gunwales.

From the shore, a rooster-tail of spray shot up over the water, a speedboat lighting out on the calming waters like a comet through the night. Heading straight for them.

**Looks like we gotta fight,** Eli remarked.  **And a fight means, leave the combat to the adults. Noble don't got his powers at the moment. You got no excuse not to give me control, unless you love getting your teeth knocked out. We gotta hit hard and dirty, that means joint breaks, ball-kicks, biting, stabbing, all that stuff you're too honorable to do—**

_I've kicked four different people in the balls,_ Robbie retorted in his head.

**Yes, but have you snapped any necks?**

They watched the speedboat approach as Eli continued to argue his case to an indifferent audience. It was a sleek red cigarrette boat, twice as long as their fishing boat and almost all nose, skidding over the water at seventy miles an hour. It slowed and sank down with a wash of spray as it reached them, and a red-haired woman stood up from behind the wheel.

“Rox—Rose?” Noble called out, incredulous. “You look—”

“Human,” the woman sneered. “I noticed. Don't rub it in or you will pay for it.”

“Certainly not,” Noble said. “I was...surprised to see you.”

“Don't be. You haven't been as subtle as you think.” She threw a rope across the water and Robbie caught it. “Shut up and move your luggage. If we hurry, there'll be some people left alive to give drugs to.”

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final Horseman of the Apocalypse is Famine. He's in Iowa. It's a bit of an anticlimax.

Robbie and Noble hadn't eaten for sixty miles—so, about an hour and a half on the road, but still, all the snacks in the car had rotted and there was nothing to buy anywhere. The roads were crowded in the opposite lane, cars and busses heading out. Leaving Iowa. Outside Iowa, surely, there was food.

Robbie felt sorry for the poor cows they passed. They looked thin and sickly.

“According to Twitter, the epicenter should be somewhere within ten miles of us,” Robbie said from the passenger seat of his own car. Noble was...guiding the car, but if Robbie wanted to, he could make the car do anything he wanted. He just needed some time to check his phone. It was a weird feeling, sitting in the passenger seat, and he was never getting used to it.

Noble rolled down his window and sniffed the air. A weird moldy smell poured in. “We should split up.”

“Sure. How will I find you?”

Noble pulled the car to the side of the road and burst into flame. Steel spikes stabbed out from his jacket and boots. “You'll find me.”

Robbie rolled his eyes, popped the trunk with a thought. Felt Noble's motorcycle wake up and wriggle out of it. He considered ghosting up himself, but he wasn't feeling it just yet. In the mirrors, Noble mounted his motorcycle and tore off across the blighted cornfields. Robbie stuck to the roads and watched the light of Noble's blazing head in the corner of his eye.

He finally caught up to Noble as he was driving the bike straight up the wall of a grain silo, leaving a blazing streak of tire tracks.

**He's stealing our fight!** Eli snarled.

_ He's gonna get himself killed, _ Robbie agreed. They streaked up to the edge of the silo, power-slid, and burned up, fire replacing flesh and streaking up from every vent and light and seam of the car. There was no way the car could fit through the tiny windows at the top of the grain elevator, so they phased through the lower wall.

The silo was empty except for a fine green dust. As the Charger entered the space, the dust caught fire and for an instant all they could see was a wall of light.

Then the fire burned out and Robbie saw Noble and his motorcycle confronting the last Horseperson of the Apocalypse, an important-looking man in a sport jacket, warding Noble away from him with a clipboard.

“No, please, I'm just doing my job,” Famine protested, and Noble lowered his head like a bull, rammed into the man's waist, and punched his head off with a spiked fist.

“ _Not much of a fight,_ ” Robbie remarked as Famine dissolved into a pile of maggots and black slime. 

Noble toed the slime with his boot. “No more innocent blood will be spilled today.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Black Rose is not an OFC, she is Roxanne Blaze, nee Roxanne Simpson, resurrected by Blackheart as a demon with amnesia! Noble freed her from Blackheart's control when he took over Hell. Comics!
> 
> (She's currently re-fridged again. Aaarrgh!!)


End file.
